AvP2 Alien Classes

An Alien’s player classes differ quite a lot from other species’ classes. Each class is balance differently between size, speed and strength. Let’s take a look at the Alien’s player classes:

Facehugger

The Facehugger is probably the weakest out of the player classes for Alien but it’s one of the fastest player classes. From the Alien movies, this is the first creature we see when it comes out of the egg. It sets out with intent to find a suitable host to lay the egg. To do this it needs to use its pounce attack and to leap onto someone’s face.

Singleplayer – In the singleplayer mission, you have to find the guy who is sleeping in the chair. Pounce on his face and you’ll be attached to his face where you’ll plant the egg. The Facehugger will die and after a few seconds the Chestburster is born.

Multiplayer – A tip for when playing as a Facehugger, is to make sure your host is in a secluded area where there is no one else around. Otherwise other enemies will kill you as soon as you’re born. Note: you will only be able to play as a Facehugger in multiplayer if the Alien Life Cycle is switched on.

Attacks/Abilities – The obvious attack which a Facehugger has is to pounce on its unsuspecting victim. This is called the Facehug attack. Try to pounce when you’re behind a corner or a box. In dark areas is a good place to hide. Opponents have less chance of seeing you there. You need to have good accuracy if you are to pounce on their face. If you miss, just run away and try again later. You can also pounce when you’re behind an enemy because you just latch onto the front of their face. It’s next ability is its Crawling ability where it can crawl up walls just like other Aliens. This can be used to hide and to jump from the wall onto the victim.

Your Evolvement – As a Facehugger, you can impregnate Marines and Predators but you can’t do it against Combat Synthetics or your fellow Aliens. Who you impregnate will determine who you will become. E.g. if you impregnate a Colonial Marine or a Civilian, you will become a Drone Alien. If you impregnate a Corporate Soldier, you will become a Runner Alien. Finally if you impregnate a Predator, you will become a mighty Predalien.

Last Words – Remember surprise is everything so use your speed and the ability to crawl up walls to your advantage. In multiplayer, playing as a Facehugger is more for fun than anything else.

Chestburster

After a Facehugger has impregnated someone, this is the next evolvement of the Alien life cycle. You have to break out of someone’s chest and then the Chestburster is born.

Singleplayer – In the singleplayer mission you start off from inside a man’s chest. Burst through that and you will have a long mission. You have to get to the end of the mission without anyone seeing you at all and believe me this is a challenge. If anyone sees you, the whole place will be put on alert. The Chestburster will only evolve if it finds some food. Don’t waste your time trying to take down a human because it’s very risky. At the end you’ll find a cage with a small animal in it. This will evolve you into an Alien Drone.

Multiplayer – In multiplayer, playing as a Chestburster is more for fun like the Facehugger. When you’ve broken free of the host, you must wait about a minute in order to evolve. The Chestburster should evolve into a Runner, a Drone or a Predalien depending who you impregnated as a Facehugger. My advice to you is to find a place to hide as soon as possible. Frequently you’ll find that you are shot as soon as you’re born.

Attacks/Abilities – A Chestburster doesn’t have many weapons. In fact its only weapon is to use its Jaws to bite its enemy and even that doesn’t do much damage. It’s quite speedy so you can get away from enemies quickly. It can’t really jump very high but you might be able to get to small platforms. One major disadvantage is that it cannot climb up walls unlike other Aliens.

Last Words – Your purpose is to survive in multiplayer which can have its problems. Find a place to hide temporarily in multiplayer and in singleplayer use boxes to hide behind.

Drone

This is the star Alien we all love and what is seen from the Alien films. By far, this is the most common Alien in the entire game.

Singleplayer – In singleplayer, a Drone Alien is the most common Alien you’ll meet in the campaign. This goes for playing as a Marine and also a Predator. This is also who you will be playing in the last set of Alien Missions when you’ve played as a Facehugger and a Chestburster. As you go through the campaign mission, there will be a man called Dr. Eisenberg who will try his best to destroy you.

Multiplayer – When playing as a Drone Alien, use surprise and your speed to your advantage. When playing against humans, try to dodge attacks from them until you can come up close to them. When you’ve got close, claw them to death. Watch out for a Predator’s Plasmacaster. This weapon can be devastating for a Drone Alien. Again, once you’ve got close, claw them to death. If you’re against fellow Aliens in multiplayer, speed won’t be an advantage for you. Use your strength to destroy other Aliens.

Attacks/Abilities – A Drone Alien is the ‘normal’ type of Alien with its abilities evenly balanced. This deadly creature can run at a normal rate, jump at a normal height, and it’s able to do a faire amount of damage. A Drone Alien can use its Claws and its Tail to do some serious damage. One strong attack it has is to use its Pounce Attack on its victim. This could kill the enemy instantly if you get it right. You could also use the Pounce Attack to jump from one place to another. It can Crouch-Leap making it jump at a reasonable height. Use it for jumping out of the way of something or getting to another platform. A Drone Alien’s speed is amazing with lightening fast movement, you can easily sneak up or run from prey. Another ability is its Crawling ability to crawl up walls. This helps you even more to surprise your prey. The last attack is its Head-Bite attack. Use it to get health from victims. The only disadvantage of a Drone Alien is that it could be vulnerable to gunfire.

Last Words – Playing as a Drone Alien is fantastic so experiment with its attacks and abilities for good results.

Runner

The Runner Alien is the result of when a Facehugger impregnates a Corporate Soldier. This is the fastest of the Alien species but also the weakest in terms of strength.

Singleplayer – Although you can’t play as one in singleplayer mode, it’s the second-most common Alien you’ll see.

Multiplayer – When playing against other players, other player’s accuracy levels might be lower. This is due to the way the Runner Alien moves. It uses all four legs to move around making you very low to the ground. This does have its disadvantages because the Head-Bite attack might be difficult to do. In light areas, camouflaging is difficult to do because of your red colour.

Attacks/Abilities – The Runner Alien has all the attacks as the normal Drone Alien. The only things that are different are the speed difference and the strength difference. Its attacks it uses are: its Claws, Tail, Pounce Attack, and Head-Bite. It still can jump the same height as a Drone Alien with Crouch-Leap. It also has the Crawling ability allowing it to crawl up walls and other objects. A Runner Alien is slightly faster than a Drone Alien but being along with being faster it also has a disadvantage. It’s slightly weaker in strength than a Drone Alien. This means that a Runner Alien will be more vulnerable to attacks from Humans, Predators and other Aliens.The extra speed could come in handy for running away from enemies or missiles. Maybe you could use the extra speed to ambush your enemy before they even know your there. From a Drone Alien’s point of view, extra speed isn’t really an advantage because other Aliens use Pounce Attack to get to places quickly.

Last Words – What a Runner Alien doesn’t have in strength, it makes up for it in extra speed. This appears to be a good Alien but I still pick to play a Drone Alien.

Predalien

This is what you get when you cross an Alien and a Predator – a Predalien. A Predalien is the result when a Facehugger impregnates a Predator.

Singleplayer – Like a Runner Alien, a Predalien is a non-playable character in singleplayer. You still get to meet this Alien when you’re playing the Marine and Predator missions.

Multiplayer – A Predalien can easily defeat any other types of Aliens because of the increased strength. Watch out for humans carrying a Rocket Launcher, Mini-Gun, Sniper Rifle, and a Shotgun. a couple of shots from these at you will kill you. Also watch out for a Predator’s Disk or Remote Bomb. A disadvantage of a Predalien is that it’s quite big and so maybe unable to hide easily.

Attacks/Abilities – One thing that is obvious when you play as a Predalien is the reduced speed. A Predalien is the slowest specie of Aliens. I think that the increased Pounce Attack range makes up for the reduced speed. It can jump about 1.5 times further than a Drone Alien. Because of the reduced speed, a Predalien is very strong in terms of durability, although some weapons can be very effective. The durability can be good at getting close to the enemy and killing them. One thing a Predalien is lacking compared to a Drone Alien is that there’s no Head-Bite attack. This basically means that regaining health can only be done by using your Claws. Apart from that, a Predalien has all the attacks and abilities of a Drone Alien. These include: its Claws, Tail, Crawling ability and its Crouch-Leap.

Last Words – A Predalien is certainly strong but maybe its lack of speed can be damaging. Although its Pounce Attack makes up for it, it’s certainly a class Alien.

Praetorian

A Praetorian Alien is the Queen’s royal guard and the protector of the Alien Hive. Compared to other Alien classes, a Praetorian is the most heavily armoured Alien in the game.

Singleplayer – Like a Predalien, you can’t play as a Praetorian in any of the singleplayer missions unless you use cheats. If you’re playing the Predator or Marine missions, you will only tend to meet this Alien at the end of the missions – near the hive.

Multiplayer – If you pick to play as a Praetorian in the multiplayer, I can guarantee it’s going to be a challenge. When playing against Marines, be careful about approaching them. Look to see if they’ve got one of the amour-piercing weapons. If they haven’t attack them straight away. Playing against a Predator might not be as bad as you think. With its speed being not good and its lack of amour-piercing weapons, a Predator could be easy to bring down. They will probably only be able to beat a Praetorian with hand-to-hand combat with the Combstick. Aliens will be the easiest of the lot to kill because despite their speed, they will be easy to kill. All comes down to when fighting Aliens is strength and that’s where a Praetorian wins.

Attacks/Abilities – Being heavily armoured means that a Praetorian is covered in amour plating. This reduces damage by about 80% whereby only amour-piercing weapons will work against him. From a Marine’s point of view, effective weapons are: the M-4A4 Pistol (Secondary Ammo Only), the Shotgun (Secondary Ammo Only), M-6B Rocket Launcher, and the M-90 Minigun. From a Predator’s point of view, the most effective weapons only seem to be a Remote Bomb and his Combstick. A Praetorian’s amour plating seems to be the only advantage to this creature.

Unfortunately there are a few disadvantages. The first thing that suffers is a Praetorian’s speed. It’s the second-slowest Alien after a Predalien. Another big disadvantage is that there’s no Pounce Attack. Unlike a Predalien you can’t use the attack as a way of getting around. Playing as a Praetorian means you are the biggest of the Alien species. This could be good in a way but it messes up your chances of hiding and sneaking up on your prey. The disadvantages don’t stop here. It’s also unable to use the Crawling ability. This makes it harder to escape from enemies and to sneak up on them. A Praetorian still has the smaller attacks such as its Claws, its Tail, its Crouch-Leap and it also has the Head-Bite attack meaning it will be easier to regain health.

Last Words – Playing as a Praetorian in multiplayer is definitely a challenge. It has no stealth capabilities and its speed is not impressive, but its only advantage lies in its strength.